


the fancy things

by DivineProjectZero



Series: the cure [2]
Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Deaf Christine Canigula, Deaf Michael Mell, F/F, Gen, M/M, Magical Realism, Siren Jeremy Heere, all the other chapters are t-rated, only chapter 4 is explicit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-08-21 21:40:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16584692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DivineProjectZero/pseuds/DivineProjectZero
Summary: A collection of short fics taking place in the time-skip betweenyou say you're okay (I'm gonna heal you anyway)and the sequel.





	1. girl on fire

**Author's Note:**

> Self-betaed. All mistakes are mine. Constructive feedback is always welcome.
> 
> Currently planned as 8 chapters with each chapter focusing on a different member of the squad. Chapter 4 (Michael's chapter) will be Explicit, while the remaining chapters will be T-rated. 
> 
> Tags and pairings will be updated accordingly as new chapters are added.

Chloe dreams of fire.

Fire, swallowing the paper tigers whole, rendering them into ashes. Fire, bursting from Rich’s skin, scorching marks across the football field’s grass, heat licking at Jake’s ankles, singing Chloe’s hair. Fire, burning through her jacket, through her shirt, into her skin just as she makes contact, fingertips digging into Rich’s shoulder, hot pain searing up her elbow as she sends 600 volts straight through Rich’s nervous system.

She wakes up and the fire is in her ribcage. Too hot, too painful, too all-consuming. Her lungs are full of smoke and the inside of her mouth tastes like ashes.

It’s been a week but the fire still burns.

-

She stands in front of the bathroom mirror and prods the gauze covering half of her right upper arm. It’s not the only place that will scar, but it’s the only place where the burn cuts into the pattern of black and green ink that curls from her shoulder blade over her shoulder and snaking around her inner arm. It’s a mural of ivy, inked by her mom’s hands a long time ago. Before puberty. Before it became clear that Chloe was never going to follow their ancestor’s footsteps, that she wasn’t going to achieve her mom’s dreams for her.

Embers climb up her throat. She swallows it down and leaves the bathroom in her tank top and shorts, goes to drink some orange juice to wash the taste of burned wreckage out of her mouth.

She’s washing her cup in the sink when she hears, “You should be careful.”

Chloe turns the water off and turns around to face her mom, the thin line of her mouth and the hard glint in her eyes. Everybody says Chloe takes after her, from the curls of dark hair to the low, cutting voice. Chloe wouldn’t know. Her mom hasn’t talked to her in years. 

Until now.

“I am careful,” Chloe says. The dull thud of burning is faint, nearly gone in the wake of her heart pounding in her ears. 

Her mom’s mouth twists, gaze narrowed on the bandaging covering a section of ivy. “Yet you still insist on associating with them. The Goranski boy is one thing, but the Heere boy? You should know better than to spend time with a walking time bomb.”

The pit of Chloe’s stomach is cold, cold, cold. 

“So what,” Chloe asks, numb. Disbelieving. “You want me to stop hanging out with them?”

“They could have killed you.” She gestures at the partially erased tattoo, mangled by fire, the ivy train cut off. “Do they know you’re only alive because of the protective spell?”

No, they don’t. Chloe didn’t tell them. 

Her mom sees it in her stiff posture and eyes. Scoffs. “Of course. You shouldn’t associate with either of them anymore.”

Fire. It burned into her arm and up to her shoulder. It burned into her fingers. It burned into her side, a scorch mark against her ribs. Rich almost killed her. He still can’t look her in the eye, and Chloe will make him change that, soon. She’s waiting for the fire to die down, first. She can’t convince Rich that she’s okay when she’s still burning down, crumbling into cinder and dust.

Chloe almost died.

“It’s been a week,” Chloe says, quiet. Back at the hospital, her dad had cried and hugged her, asking her how badly she hurt. Her mom hadn’t said a word. “I almost died and it takes you a  _week_  to talk to me about this. And the first thing you say to me in _six goddamn years_  is to tell me you don’t approve of my friends?”

Fire is in Chloe’s belly, roaring up inside, climbing into her chest, setting everything aflame. Fire is curling up her throat, on her tongue, between her teeth. She wants to burn everything down. 

“You don’t get to tell me that,” she says, voice growing louder. She’s breathing fire, angry and disappointed and burning with hurt. “You don’t get to pretend you care, that you know what’s good for me.” She pushes past her mom and grabs her jacket from the hook by the front door. “You don’t.”

“Chloe.” Her mom’s voice is sharp, authoritative. Chloe used to be in awe of that voice, the way she knew her magic inside out and commanded respect with it.

It’s the first time that voice said Chloe’s name in years.

“You don’t care about me,” Chloe says, and it’s not a question. She bares her teeth in a snarl, like a dragon smiling just before it breathes out the flames. “But they do.”

She slams the door behind her and walks away, following the path she’s walked for years, the fire still smoldering inside of her. It’s the fire’s fault that her eyes sting. It must be. Because Chloe’s okay. She really is.

-

“I don’t know why this bothers me so much,” she finally confesses, embers dying underneath her sternum. “I don’t even care about her opinion anymore.”

Brooke traces the ivy trail mirrored on Chloe’s other arm, this one entirely intact. “You stopped caring because it was the least painful thing you could do.” One finger following the ivy down to where it ends just above her elbow. “Not because you didn’t love her.”

Chloe sighs and curls sideways so she’s laying on Brooke’s bed facing Brooke. “I don’t.”

“You do,” Brooke corrects, gentle as she tucks a wayward curl behind Chloe’s ear. “And that’s okay.”

“I don’t want to,” Chloe mutters, and she hates the way her vision blurs, hates the wetness dripping down her face. 

Brooke wipes the tears away and nudges closer, a hand sneaking under the hem of the tank top, right above Chloe’s hip, fingertips tracing the forget-me-not inked on Chloe’s skin. “Then do something you want.”

Chloe looks into Brooke’s eyes, lifts a hand to trace the curve of her mouth. She can’t help but smile when Brooke nips at Chloe’s thumb teasingly, can’t help but lean in to whisper, “You. I want you.”

And when Brooke laughs and kisses her, she welcomes the fire in her blood.

-

Chloe dreams of fire.

Golden flames, dancing in the hearth, warm against her skin as Brooke waltzes with her in the snowfall that isn’t cold at all. There’s fire in her, but it doesn’t sear her insides black. She’s warm, the ashes and smoke finally clearing from her lungs, heat simmering under the surface of her skin. 

The fire still burns, but it doesn’t hurt anymore.


	2. untouchable

Jake is accustomed to constant motion. He’s used to throwing his body into challenge after challenge, to busying himself with friends and activities and responsibilities, and to having an ever-present breeze curling around him through all of that. Ever since he can remember, his world has always been a whirlwind of movement.

Now, there’s too much stillness.

“Sylphie?” Jake calls, wheeling himself out to the living room. Most of the damage done to his legs has been healed, but the doctor who’d administered the healing spell had been firm about using the wheelchair for the rest of the month, so Jake’s been living with a restless itch under his skin for a while. He can’t stand to stay still, can’t stand how the air around him doesn’t move.

He hates that it takes a long, silent moment before Sylphie’s voice responds. “Starshine. Is something the matter?”

“Nah, just,” Jake says, forcing a smile, “I thought I’d check in on you? Are you okay?”

A wisp of air caresses his cheek, and Jake’s knuckles go white as he grips his wheels too hard, the relief chased by shame. He’s seventeen years old. He shouldn’t need reassurance like this.

“Recovery is slow,” Sylphie says, tousling his hair. “I will need to rest a little longer.”

Jake feels the breeze recede, leaving him in stillness once more, and he bites the inside of his cheek to keep his smile from faltering. “Okay. I’m gonna go outside for a bit. You’re staying here, right?”

The air around him sighs, more movement than sound. “Yes. And if you need me, you must call for me.”

“I will, I will.” Jake laughs, half-hearted. “Okay, I’ll be back later. Bye, Sylphie!”

Briefly, a curl of wind circles his wrist. “Stay safe, Starshine.”

Jake doesn’t really have a destination in mind when he wheels his way down the sidewalk. All he wants to do is get out, to get away from that horrible stillness, to  _move_. So he pushes the wheels, aimless, down towards anywhere but to his silent home where the wind doesn’t blow anymore.

-

When Jake was a baby, his parents abandoned him. He knows that. Everybody knows that. He doesn’t care, for the most part. Because they might’ve left him behind, but he got Sylphie instead.

Sylphie, who found him giggling under the night sky, who thought his smile was as bright as the stars. Sylphie, who took him in and made a home and blew a hole through Social Services when they tried to take him away. Sylphie, who learned to knit her centuries of cyclones into a mimicry of the human form just so she could rock Jake to sleep.

Jake traded his mortal parents and got an Ancient mother instead. Jake has somebody who will never, ever leave him behind. Jake has always been secure in the fact.

Except, Jake had been lying face-down on the football field, a scream clawing its way out of his throat from the pain in his legs as Chloe and a half-burned paper tiger fought their classmates off, and his headphones had been knocked askew. He’d heard a sound that chilled his blood, an unearthly shriek piercing through the sky as a song that sounded like knives sliced through the air. It had been nothing like Sylphie’s usual voice, nothing like the tinkling of wind chimes or the hum of lullabies. 

He’d heard the sound of his mom about to be murdered.

And now Jake can hardly sleep, his dreams haunted by Sylphie’s screams, his dreamscapes so terrifyingly motionless that he wakes up thinking  _she’s gone she’s gone she’s gone_  and his chest too tight with the urge to cry.

Jake loves Sylphie, wouldn’t trade anything in the world for her, but those moments in the dark, when he’s all alone and her name is stuck in his throat, he wishes she were a little more tangible. A little more visible. He wishes he had a childhood where he could wake from a nightmare and go climb into his mom’s bed, wishes he could be a helpful son who can nurse his mom back to good health, wishes he hadn’t grown up to be so fucking hungry for somebody’s touch on his skin. So hungry for—

“Jake?”

Jake blinks, his focus pulled from his inner turmoil to the world in front of him, and he realizes Michael is approaching him.

“Michael,” Jake says, automatically turning his head to make sure Michael can see his mouth. “Whatcha doing here?”

Michael raises an incredulous eyebrow, then gestures behind him to his house. Oh.

**What are you doing here?**  Michael signs.

What  _is_  Jake doing here, on the other side of town, wheeling past Michael’s house? He’d just meant to get some fresh air, to move, to go find—

“Ha.” Jake feels the air rush out of his lungs, like he’s been gut-punched, because he’s an idiot. Because he’s been doing what he always does when he needs somebody to get him out of his head, somebody to run a warm hand down his back. 

He’d been heading towards Rich’s house.

“Jake?” Michael asks, sounding a little alarmed.

Sylphie’s always loved Jake, has always made sure he’s never felt alone, and Jake hasn’t ever felt lonely in his entire life. He’s always had the wind ruffling his hair, brushing his fingers, pushing his back. Sylphie provided for him, home and food and everything a human boy could ever want. The one thing she’d starved him of was physical contact, because solidity wasn’t her natural form and Jake had never been good at asking for more than what he already had.

Rich had fixed that. Rich had eased the hunger in Jake’s bones with high-fives and hugs and quiet hours of leaning against each other. Rich’s warmth had chased the chill away, his fingertips tracing lazy patterns on Jake’s arms, and Jake had flourished under the contact, basking in the comfort of Rich’s touch until one day he’d looked at Rich’s fingers measuring the circumference of Jake’s wrist and thought,  _huh_.

But now Rich won’t touch Jake at all, can barely meet his eyes, and Jake can feel the distance between them growing and growing and growing. Jake hasn’t touched anybody in days, except for maybe the occasional fist-bump, and the air around him is so still, so motionless, so  _dead_.

“I don’t know where to go,” Jake says. It’s only when he tastes salt in his words that he realizes that he’s crying.

Jake has never felt so fucking  _lonely_.

“Hey,” Michael says, quiet, bending his knees so he can look up at Jake with worried eyes. He slowly places a gentle hand at the back of Jake’s head and pulls him down towards the crook of his shoulder. It’s nothing like Rich’s touch at all, but it comforts him just the same.

Jake has never been alone from Sylphie until now, but he’s grateful she isn’t here. He doesn’t want her to see him like this. He doesn’t want anybody to hear him as he finally sobs out loud, as he falls apart.

But as Michael rubs a soothing hand over his back, Jake cries harder, because he’s so glad he’s not alone.


	3. these wordless longings

There are so many things Jeremy doesn’t know how to say. Even after he gets his voice back, he has trouble stringing together the thoughts he wants to balance on his tongue. Words are foreign in his mouth. Sometimes he chokes on them, unable to spit a single syllable through his teeth.

It doesn’t bother him, really. He’s lived without his voice for five years, can articulate himself just as easily through his hands and facial expressions, and he could live without saying another word for the rest of his life.

But there is Michael, who lived in a silent world of Jeremy’s making, who now lives in a world of otherworldly sounds whispering in the silence. Michael, who somehow loves Jeremy despite everything he’s done, who lights up with delight whenever he hears Jeremy’s voice.

There are so many things Jeremy wants to tell him. So many things that Jeremy doesn’t know how to say, neither with his voice nor his hands.

-

“You’ve been staring,” Chloe remarks as she closes her locker. Her tone is mild, without a single trace of accusation, but Jeremy flinches all the same.

**Sorry** , he signs, and she recognizes it easily enough. He’s been signing that a lot in the past month.

She shrugs, and Jeremy’s eyes follow the movement from her bare shoulders down to the burn scar stretching across her right arm, from collarbone to elbow. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for.” Then she gives a deliberate smirk. “Your boyfriend is going to be jealous if you keep ogling me, though.”

Jeremy sputters at that, which makes her cackle, the delighted sound soothing away the jittery guilt under his skin.

“At least you’re subtle about it. Rich keeps looking at me like I murdered his puppy.” She pauses. “Or more like he murdered  _my_  puppy and he expects me to make him pay for it.”

Jeremy grimaces. He knows the feeling, from both sides of the situation. Rich had brushed off Jeremy’s apologies, saying how it wasn’t Jeremy’s fault, he was okay, they were still friends. But it doesn’t change the fact that Rich flinches away whenever Jeremy comes within a foot of him, that he never really smiles as wide as he used to.

“I mean, I electrocuted him pretty badly.” Chloe doesn’t express any guilt about that, which Jeremy is oddly grateful for. “His scars are worse than mine. He should know that we’re even on this.”

If only it were that easy. Then maybe Rich would stop leaving the lunch table in a hurry every day. Maybe he would stop making excuses to avoid hanging out with their friends after school. Maybe he would actually mean the words when he’d laugh, uneasy, and say  _I know it wasn’t my fault_.

Jeremy can’t blame him. The only person to blame is Jeremy himself, after all.

-

Everybody makes way for Jeremy at school nowadays. People avoid his eyes, giving him a wide berth, and don’t even dare to say his name when he’s around.

Michael likes to joke about how it’s nice that they never have to force their ways through crowds anymore, but Jeremy can tell that it bothers him, the way Jeremy is treated like a threat. Like a criminal.

Jeremy thinks they have the right idea. Everybody  _should_  be scared of him. It’s safer that way.

He thinks Michael should be scared, too.

-

“Do you  _want_  Michael to be scared of you?”

Jeremy chews on his lip, fidgeting under his therapist’s calm gaze. Over a month into his state-mandated therapy, he still feels uneasy talking about Michael. He can talk about anything else—the nauseating sensation of having something else possess his body, the lingering resentment over his mom’s abrupt departure, the guilt over Rich and Chloe and Jake and everybody else at school who is going to mandatory counseling for three more weeks. But when it comes to Michael, Jeremy doesn’t know what he wants to say. Doesn’t know how to express this craven need to never let him go, this desperate compulsion to push him away.

**No**. Jeremy hesitates.  **Yes**. He lets out a frustrated huff.  **Both. I don’t know.**

“What do you think will happen if Michael were to be scared of you?” She asks.

He raises his hands to say  _he’d be safe_ , but he pauses, because that’s not true. Michael would stay by Jeremy’s side regardless of how scared he was, because that’s the kind of stupid, reckless, loyal person he is.  **Nothing.**  It makes Jeremy want to cry. **Nothing would change. He’d still be with me.**

She scribbles something on her note pad. “Do you want him to be with you?”

Jeremy always wants Michael to be with him. He almost fucking caused the apocalypse because he was scared of Michael leaving him.  **He shouldn’t be.**

“But what do you  _want_?” Her tone is gentle, but the question makes him ache all the same.

**What I want isn’t important,** he signs.

“Jeremy.” She puts her pen down. “You’re allowed to want things. You’re allowed to say that you want them.”

Michael says that too, sometimes.  _You’re allowed to be selfish_. Whispered clumsily against Jeremy’s mouth in the dark. Scratched onto a post-it note slipped inside Jeremy’s biology notebook with skinny hearts surrounding the words. Signed in rapid gestures for Jeremy to see right before he enters his therapist’s office.

Sometimes, Jeremy can almost believe it.

-

**How did it go?** Michael asks.

**Excruciating as always**. Jeremy climbs into the passenger seat and buckles in.  **Thanks for waiting.**

**I was doing math homework anyway, no biggie.** Michael turns the ignition in preparation of the forty-five minute drive home. It had sucked, initially, to discover that the nearest therapist who was both qualified for dealing with demonic possession and fluent in ASL was so far away, but the long drives are now Jeremy’s favorite part about going to therapy: inside an enclosed space, with the car’s stereo volume turned up high and the audio jack plugged into his phone, blasting music that Jeremy sings along to the whole way home. He messes up the lyrics sometimes and can barely rap, but he gets to be as silly and loud as he wants, and Michael smiles through every minute of it.

-

He doesn’t talk verbally with anybody but his dad and Michael. And even with his dad, it’s sporadic and fleeting. With Michael, he makes more of an effort, because Jeremy’s voice is one of the few sounds he can truly hear, and Jeremy wants to give Michael everything that is within his power to give.

And now that there is an incredible amount of power laying dormant in his soul, the possibilities terrify the ever-loving  _shit_  out of Jeremy. This entire mess started with the idea that maybe he could give Michael’s hearing back, and honestly, the knowledge that he  _could_  do that—he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t tempted to make use of the power sleeping within him.

(He won’t. He promised Michael. But the temptation will always be there.)

And just the fact that he hasn’t learned his goddamn lesson when he brainwashed forty people and almost killed his friend’s Ancient mom and screwed over his friends forever, it makes Jeremy want to scream. To take a shard of glass to his throat and sever his vocal chords so he can do no more harm. More than anything, he wants to find the words that are clawing their way out of him, to give shape to the guilt and fear and greed roaring inside him.

-

**You should’ve let me break his nose.**  Michael throws himself onto the couch at the back of his basement. He’s been fuming for a while.  **I could’ve just said he ran into me by accident**.

**People don’t run face-first into fists** , Jeremy signs in exasperation.

**Who said it was gonna be my fist?**  Michael responds with a grim face.  **I have perfectly serviceable elbows.**

Jeremy snorts at that in spite of himself and Michael cracks a grin, but it slides off his mouth after a moment, replaced by a furious scowl.

**I should have punched him.**

**You can’t drive me to therapy if you have detention** , Jeremy jokes, but it falls flat. The words that he’s been swallowing down rattle in his ribcage, and he wishes he knew how to say them without being ripped apart by them, without forcing Michael to make a choice. Unbidden, the words Dustin Kropp said earlier come back to him.  _A danger to society like you shouldn’t be allowed to be in public_. It’s surprising that Jeremy doesn’t hear that one more often, to be honest. “It’s not like he was wrong.”

He doesn’t realize he’s said that aloud until he hears the sound of fingers snapping twice and his attention automatically refocuses onto Michael’s pale, outraged face.

**What the fuck?**  Michael stands up and walks up to Jeremy.  **We went over this. You can’t blame yourself for everything**.

Something about the way Michael advances on him—like it doesn’t even occur to him to fear being close to Jeremy, like Jeremy isn’t a fucking danger to everybody around him—douses Jeremy with white-hot anger.  **I’m not blaming myself for jackshit** , he signs aggressively.  **I’m saying that he’s right; I’m dangerous. People have every right to be scared of me.**

**I’m not scared of you**. Michael is standing only inches away, and Jeremy wants to drag him in and kiss the stubborn line of his mouth, wants to scream until Michael can hear what the whole world is saying, wants to tell Michael  _never leave me_  and force him to  _listen_.

“You  _should_  be!” The words scrape against his throat as he yells them much louder than he intended, but he can’t be quiet now. Can’t stop the flood of words that rip their way out of him, the things he doesn’t know how to say but needs to say anyway. “You shouldn’t want to be with me, not after everything I did. I almost killed people—hell, I almost killed an  _Ancient_. I almost ended the whole fucking world. And yeah, that wasn’t what I wanted, it was the demon, whatever, but  _I_  chose that. I was the one who made the choice to let the demon possess me, to hell with the rest of the world, as long as I got what I wanted. And you know what?" 

And here it is, the ugly truth that he can’t deny: 

"I’d do it again. If it came down to choosing between you and the rest of the world, I’d burn down the world in a heartbeat.” He covers his face with both hands, unable to look at the stunned look on Michael’s face any longer. “I’m not safe, Michael, and I don’t think I’m really sane, either, if I’m saying shit like this.”

For the longest moment, there’s nothing but the ragged sound of his breathing and a voice deep in his soul, chained and trapped, hissing _he’ll never feel safe around you again, knowing how deep your twisted obsession of him run_ s.

He can’t help but think,  _good_.

And then warm hands curl around his wrists, tugging his hands down, and Michael’s forehead presses against Jeremy’s, forcing him to tilt his face up, and then Michael’s kissing him, hard and insistent, licking into Jeremy’s gasping mouth with a hunger that makes Jeremy’s knees nearly buckle. He kisses back on instinct for about five seconds, whining into Michael’s mouth and shuddering at Michael’s responding growl, then regains his sanity and pulls away, trying to tug his wrists free. But Michael holds on tighter and chases his mouth, and in the ensuing struggle Jeremy trips backwards onto a beanbag chair, Michael following him down.

“Ow,” Jeremy complains about his sore ass. Michael echoes the sentiment as he rubs one of his knees. “What the fuck, Michael?” One of his hands is free now, but Michael still has one of Jeremy’s wrists in a vice-grip. “Let go of me.”

Michael twitches, his grip loosening for a second before it tightens again. He raises his free hand to respond.  **No**.

“Michael.” A thread of desperation creeps into Jeremy’s voice. He needs Michael to get away from him, because if Michael keeps holding onto him like this, Jeremy’s going to fool himself into thinking he could keep Michael forever. “Did you hear a single word I said?”

**Yes**. Michael glances down at the hand he’s keeping around Jeremy’s wrist, then looks back up to meet Jeremy’s eyes. “I love you too, asshole.”

Jeremy blinks, then makes a pained noise. “I literally just said I’d sell my soul and the rest of the world to the devil for you. That is  _not_  supposed to be your response.”

“It was the most romantic bullshit I’ve ever heard,” Michael says, slow but firm.

“That’s not romantic; that’s  _crazy_.” A slightly hysterical despair seeps into Jeremy’s chest. Michael is making no move to get away from Jeremy, and he isn’t sure if he should be relieved or chagrined. “Also, was that a deaf joke? Because it’s not funny.”

“Fuck you,” Michael says, signing it with his free hand. “I’m hilarious.” He lifts Jeremy’s captive hand to his face and kisses Jeremy’s palm slowly, gaze fixed on Jeremy’s eyes. Jeremy swallows a whimper before it can escape, but he can’t hide his shudder at the contact. “And you love me.”

Jeremy curls his hand around Michael’s jaw, slides it back to cup the back of his neck, and Michael lets him. Lets Jeremy pull him in so that he’s half-hovering over Jeremy, their noses brushing, his knees between Jeremy’s. Even after everything Jeremy’s done, after everything he’s confessed, he’s still so unafraid of Jeremy.

“You should run,” Jeremy whispers against Michael’s mouth. “Or I might never let you leave.”

Michael laughs, low and breathless. “Sounds perfect.”

Something breaks loose in Jeremy at that, the inside of his chest flooding, hot and all-encompassing. He pulls Michael in for a bruising kiss, hauling him closer with both hands, tangling fingers into hair and hoodie, trying to press into Michael, leaving not even an inch of space between them. “You idiot,” he mouths against Michael’s skin, kissing up Michael’s cheek, nipping at the shell of his ear. “I love you. God, do you even know how much I love you?” Everything is spilling out of him—the want, the desperation, the fear—poured into his words so that Michael can feel every single part of this love of his, twisted and deep and true. “I love you so much it scares me.”

“ I know.” Michael pushes closer; doesn’t flinch away from the raging current, this flood of emotion that Jeremy cannot contain, overflowing in his words and voice and magic. “I hear you.” Instead he trails kisses down Jeremy’s jaw and neck. “I know.” He brushes his lips against Jeremy’s, his words hot and sweet as they’re breathed into Jeremy’s mouth. “How could I be scared of you, when you love me just as badly as I love you?”

-

**I’ve thought about it** , Michael tells him the next day as they sit in the waiting room of Jeremy’s therapist.  **And I think you shouldn’t worry about making stupid choices**.

**Thought you said it was romantic?**  Jeremy snarks, and Michael swats him.

**In theory! Didn’t work out in practice, remember?**  Michael gestures around them. One more consequence of Jeremy’s obsession.  **But back to my point. You don’t have to worry about making shitty decisions, because I’m not leaving you. Ever.**

That’s not something that might be entirely within Michael’s power to guarantee, but Jeremy wants to believe it anyway.  **So my crazy possessive stalker-y declaration doesn’t scare you, huh.**

**Like I’d ever be scared of you**. Michael snorts, but his smile is soft and fond.

And that’s okay, really. Michael doesn’t need to be scared of Jeremy. Jeremy’s going to be scared for the both of them.

**Besides** , Michael adds, the corner of his mouth quirking up in a mischievous grin,  **it’s kinda hot.**

Jeremy can’t help the shocked, scandalized laugh that bursts out of him.  **You have some really questionable kinks, dude.**

Michael flips him the bird.  **I’m just saying.**

**What, you want me to tie you to my bed and never let you leave?**  Jeremy jokes, but the way Michael flushes a dark red all the way to the tips of his ears makes him realize he’s hit pretty close to home. He feels his own face go hot at the image of it.  **Seriously? You’d let me do that?**

**I’d let you do anything to me** , Michael signs, going impossibly redder.

“Jesus Christ,” Jeremy says aloud, unable to help himself, and he catches the way Michael shivers, responding to the sheer lust in Jeremy’s words. He takes a moment to shut down the ideas springing up in his hormonal teenage mind, focusing on the terribly sobering prospect of facing his therapist in the next two minutes instead of the incredibly hot prospect of Michael trusting him so much.  **We’re kinda crazy, aren’t we.**

**Crazy for each other, hell yeah.**  Michael makes a kissy face at him.

Jeremy shoves his shoulder.  **My therapist is going to have a fucking field day with me.**

And speak of the devil, his therapist is poking her head out of her door and calling his name now. Michael follows Jeremy’s gaze, sees that it’s Jeremy’s time to face the music, and grins at him.  **She can be buddies with my counselor. He thinks we’re a hot mess.**

Jeremy grimaces as he stands up, and Michael laughs.

**But he also thinks that we’re going to be okay**. Michael takes Jeremy’s hand to give it a reassuring squeeze, then nudges him towards the open office door.  **And I think so too.**

Maybe Jeremy’s therapist will agree, once she hears the words Jeremy has finally found to talk about Michael. As he steps through the doorway, he realizes that there’s so many things he wants to say. Things he wants to tell his therapist, his dad, his friends. Michael. And he thinks, for the first time, he might know how to say them.


	4. your voice in my bones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is explicit as fuck. Subsequent chapters will be T-rated again.

They figure it out at the same time, one lazy afternoon in Jeremy’s bed while they have the house to themselves.

They’ve been dating for a little over six weeks, meaning that it’s been a little over six weeks since Michael partially got his hearing back, specifically limited to hearing magic. Michael’s gotten used to the weirdness that is being able to hear Jake’s mom’s voice as she greets him in passing—which is doubly unsettling because she’s invisible most of the time—or the hum of power whenever Jenna executes a spell beside him, but he doubts he’ll ever stop savoring the sound of Jeremy’s voice. He loves hearing Jeremy speak in the privacy of their home, loves listening to Jeremy sing while Michael drives, loves hearing the way Jeremy says  _I love you_ , the affection and yearning delivered clearly through the magic in Jeremy’s voice.

So, Michael loves hearing Jeremy, loves that he can even hear Jeremy’s emotions through his words. It’s completely natural that he also loves hearing Jeremy whine his name, limbs splayed across the bedsheets as Michael sucks bruises into the pale skin offered before him. It’s inevitable that he loves the sound of Jeremy gasping when Michael mouths his way up the inside of a quivering thigh, kissing the crease where thigh meets crotch, licking Jeremy’s erection from base to tip. He loves the sound of Jeremy whimpering when he takes him into his mouth, sucking delicately around the head as he holds Jeremy down with one forearm across his hips, relishing the sight of Jeremy looking down at him with flushed cheeks and swollen lips. He fucking loves the way Jeremy groans when Michael takes him in deeper, pressing the tip of his tongue against Jeremy’s slit, feeling Jeremy’s whole body shudder.

He thinks he’d love it even more if he could make Jeremy come undone completely, to unravel him so thoroughly that he forgets to stay quiet; releasing every filthy, pleasure-soaked sound uninhibited. Jeremy’s so cautious of using his voice all the time—barring when he’s giving Michael private concerts on their long drives back from Jeremy’s therapist—and Michael’s forever trying to convince Jeremy that it’s okay to speak freely in Michael’s presence. So at the very least, when they’re at their most intimate, Michael wants Jeremy to stop overthinking it. Wants Jeremy to stop muffling that gorgeous voice and be as loud as he wants.

Which is exactly why he’s tied Jeremy’s wrists to the headboard this time.

Jeremy’s been biting his lower lip in an effort to be quiet, but Michael’s been teasing him for over half an hour now, and the sounds escaping from his pretty mouth have grown increasingly louder. Michael’s pretty sure Jeremy’s keyed up to the point where if Michael just gives him the right push, he’ll  _scream_.

“Michael?” Jeremy asks when Michael takes a moment to pull off and grab the lube. He sounds dazed. Wrecked. “What are you—oh my god,” he squeaks when Michael traces the cleft of Jeremy’s ass with a slick fingertip, pausing right below Jeremy’s hole. “Oh,  _fuck_.”

The expletive is like a jolt to Michael’s spine, a shock of sheer pleasure dumped straight into his bloodstream. He shudders from the pleasure of it, the way it makes his own cock twitch in the confines of his boxers. When he gets his breath even again, he takes Jeremy’s cock back into his mouth, timing it so that he takes Jeremy in as deep as he can right as he pushes a finger slowly into Jeremy. The high-pitched whine that spills from Jeremy’s lips makes Michael jolt hard enough that he nearly chokes on Jeremy’s cock.

“ _Michael_ ,” Jeremy gasps, and Michael is pretty sure he’s never going to be able to let Jeremy say his name in public ever again, because he’s going to get Pavlovian boners for the rest of his life. “Fuck, Michael.”

He slides his finger in deeper, searching for that sweet spot that makes Jeremy melt, and it takes him only a few seconds before Jeremy’s back is arching with a shocked sound that catches in his throat. Michael doesn’t give Jeremy a chance to recover and presses against his prostate again, humming around Jeremy’s cock as he does so, and Jeremy  _shrieks_.

The sound of it punches through Michael, like a fuse has been lit and detonated instantaneously, white-hot heat exploding through him as he bucks his hips and comes in his boxers without warning the same time Jeremy spills into his mouth.

Breathless, Michael sits back on the mattress, licking the come that spilled over onto his lips and wiping the rest from his chin with a hand. He looks down at his ruined boxers, then meets Jeremy’s wide eyes, and both of them connect the dots simultaneously.

“Did you,” Jeremy rasps, propping up his upper body by his elbows, “just come from my voice?”

Michael shivers at the undisguised lust in Jeremy’s words. It’s all the answer he needs to give, judging by the way Jeremy’s eyes go dark and hungry despite the fact that he literally came less than three minutes ago.

“Oh, fuck me. That’s hot,” Jeremy says, the heat in his voice searing across Michael’s skin, and Michael realizes he should’ve been careful for what he wished for.

-

Once Jeremy realizes just how much his voice turns Michael on, he’s fucking  _ruthless_  with his usage of it. All he needs to do is whisper Michael’s name in  _that_  tone into Michael’s ear, letting the desire drip from his words, and Michael is instantly hard. When Michael’s fucking him slow and steady, he moans shamelessly like some goddamn porn star and it’s like a shot of electricity in Michael’s veins, often shoving him over the edge entirely by surprise.

In hindsight, it shouldn’t be surprising that Jeremy’s voice reduces Michael to an instrument to be played, plucking at his strings until he unravels and comes undone. Jeremy is a literal siren hybrid, after all, with a voice charged with magic that he can’t turn off, all his emotions spilling over into his vocalizations. And Michael can only hear Jeremy’s voice; nothing can distract him from it, because he can’t hear the creaking of a bed or the wet sound of their kisses or the slap of skin against skin when he fucks Jeremy. There’s only the sound of Jeremy’s voice, sex-drenched and lust-charged, stoking the fire in Michael’s blood til he’s burning from the inside out.

And because Jeremy Heere is going to be the death of him, it doesn’t stop at being unreservedly loud in bed. Oh, no, of course it doesn’t stop at Michael getting exactly what he wished for and paying for it (in orgasms— _so_  many orgasms).

Jeremy  _talks_.

“Your fingers feel so good,” Jeremy says, breath hitching as Michael pushes a third finger into him. Jeremy’s naked from the waist down on the couch in Michael’s basement, because he’d decided to seduce Michael in the middle of Mario Kart, and Michael is shirtless and so hard that he just might come inside his jeans before he manages to fuck Jeremy into an incoherent wreck. “You make me feel so good— _ah_ —and god, it’d be even better with your cock.”

Michael growls at that, his body automatically responding to the heated desire in Jeremy’s voice. He’s trying to keep a grip on his fraying patience and prep Jeremy enough to avoid hurting him, but Jeremy is a fucking  _menace_.

“I want you so bad.” Jeremy’s voice breaks with a whimper when Michael twists his fingers inside him, but he doesn’t stop. “I want you to fuck me so hard I can’t walk straight tomorrow. Want you fill me up, want you to fucking  _ruin_  me, Michael.” He keens when Michael pulls his fingers out, wrapping his bare legs around Michael’s waist, begging to be fucked without an ounce of shame. “Michael, please, I need you inside me.  _Michael_.”

“Jeremy.” Michael’s throat feels raw. He doesn’t trust himself to speak coherently at this point, so he takes a moment before unzipping his jeans and shoving his underwear down to sign  **shut the fuck up before I come in my pants.**

“Don’t come in your pants,” Jeremy says, a hint of amusement echoing in his voice before it drowns in pure heat. “I want you to come inside me.”

One day, Michael is going to have to gag Jeremy’s pretty mouth and finger him open so slow that he’s crying for it, then fuck him til he doesn’t even remember his own name. Take his sweet time wringing Jeremy dry.

But for now, Michael needs to fuck Jeremy’s brains out.

He doesn’t bother to go slow or gentle; instead, he lines himself up and thrusts in all the way until he’s fully seated inside that tight, damp heat, his own hips pressed against Jeremy’s ass, and Jeremy throws his head back against the couch cushions with a high, broken moan. The sound is static in Michael’s nervous system, a low-impact shockwave of pleasure washing over him, causing his hips to buck forward on autopilot.

“Oh god, Michael, please.” Jeremy clenches around him, trying to urge him deeper. “ _Fuck_  me.”

The demand thrills its way up Michael’s spine, and he gladly obeys. He grips Jeremy’s hips tight enough to leave bruises and pulls out, just enough to leave only the head of his dick in Jeremy, then thrusts back in as hard as he can, eliciting a choked gasp from Jeremy’s lips. He repeats the action over and over, fast and rough, spurred on by the needy sounds he fucks out of Jeremy’s mouth, the half-formed sounds of his name and wordless whimpers of pleasure. 

He knows if he slows down enough for Jeremy to get his breath back, he’s going to be subjected to another one of those deliberate, drawn-out porn star moans that go straight to his dick, and Michael is determined not to come before Jeremy today. So he keeps going, changing the angle little by little until Jeremy’s whine jumps half an octave higher and his whole body undulates under Michael’s. “Fuck!”

 _Jackpot_ , Michael thinks, and takes care to keep thrusting at that same angle. He’s tempted to draw it out, maybe fuck Jeremy to orgasm with his cock untouched, but he’s impatient, already too close to the edge, so he decides to save that for another time and wraps a hand around Jeremy, pumping him in time with his thrusts.

Jeremy keens, one hand clutching at the couch cushion under his head, and the other hand latching around the wrist of Michael’s hand that’s still gripping Jeremy by the hip. The only sounds Jeremy’s making now are breathless half-sobs, punctuating each thrust that rocks his body, and Michael wonders what it says about himself that he finds those helpless sounds such a fucking turn-on.

He twists his grip a little during an upward stroke on Jeremy’s cock, rubbing his thumb over the slit, and then Jeremy’s spurting all over Michael’s fist, shuddering apart with a series of small, broken noises while clenching impossibly tighter around Michael’s dick. Michael fucks Jeremy through it, careful to avoid his prostate as to not overstimulate him, and keeps his hand moving until Jeremy squirms and pulls Michael’s hand away and up to his mouth, where he licks the come off Michael’s fingers, looking coyly up at Michael through damp lashes.

Michael swears under his breath, slowing his pace so he’s rocking into Jeremy more gently. He revels in how pliant Jeremy is under him, taking Michael’s cock so easily, and it lasts for all of twenty more seconds before he’s coming, listening to the sound of Jeremy’s shuddery sigh of contentment as he spills inside him.

-

Just when Michael thinks he’s gotten used to the power of his boyfriend’s voice as a literal aphrodisiac, Jeremy fucking Heere decides to up the goddamn ante.

Specifically, Jeremy decides to ruin Michael’s life one fine afternoon by creeping up from behind Michael, who was rummaging through the kitchen cupboard in search of the perfect popcorn bowl, and saying, “Hey, I wanna test something out.”

Michael turns his head, meaning to ask Jeremy to clarify that statement, but then Jeremy’s moving closer, giving Michael just enough warning to not tense up when he plasters himself against Michael’s back, tucking his chin over one shoulder and wrapping his arms around Michael’s waist. He nuzzles his face against the side of Michael’s neck like a cat, and from here, Michael can can smell Jeremy’s shampoo and the faint hint of laundry detergent from Jeremy’s clothes. It’s nice.  

Just as he’s about to relax into Jeremy’s hold, Jeremy rests his chin on the juncture where Michael’s shoulder meets neck and says, low and throaty, lust amped up to nine-hundred in his voice, “Remember when you said you’d let me tie you up?”

Michael possibly squeaks.

“You said you’d let me tie you to the bed.” Jeremy hums, and a vibration of magic ricochets straight down Michael’s spine to his dick. “You said you’d let me do anything to you.” He leans up just enough to nip at the shell of Michael’s ear. “I wanna fuck you.”

“Fuck,” Michael mutters, clutching at the kitchen counter, his face burning. He’s already hard.

Jeremy makes an agreeable sound. “I think you want it, too.” Fingertips sneak under the hem of Michael’s shirt, stroking along the skin there. “You want me  _inside_  you.” The way he says those words are  _filthy_ , his words full of dirty promises that Michael desperately wants him to keep. “God, you’d be so hot, all tied up and filled up with me. Do you think I could get you off without giving you a hand? You made me come just from your cock last week, remember?”

Michael moans, helpless. He remembers vividly. It’d been one of the hottest things that happened in his  _life_.

“It felt so good. You always make me feel so good, so full. So  _fucked_.” Jeremy practically purrs the last word, and Michael shudders with how good it feels. “I want to make you feel good, Michael. I want you all the fucking time. Can you feel it?”

An obvious hardness presses up against Michael’s ass and he lets out a groan in response. His knuckles have gone white with how hard they’re clutching the kitchen counter. He’s pretty sure he’s leaking a wet spot into his underwear. Hell, he’s willing to bet that he’s leaking into his jeans right now.

Jeremy presses a kiss to the side of Michael’s neck. “You’re hard too, right?” He doesn’t move his hands to check, like it’s a rhetorical question he already knows the answer to. “Do you think I could make you come just from talking?” He presses another kiss to Michael’s skin, but this time it’s open-mouthed, a wet tongue leaving a hot trail in its wake. “I think you could. You like it so much when I beg, but I think you’d enjoy it the other way around, too. If I made you beg.” Jeremy’s voice goes even lower, and the arousal radiating from his voice makes Michael feel weak-kneed. “Do you think I could make you spread your legs for me and not come until I say you could?”

Michael thinks he might have just made an incredibly dirty sound, but he’s not sure. All he’s sure of is that he wants to grind back onto Jeremy’s hard-on, wants Jeremy to reach down and touch his dick, wants Jeremy to just bend Michael over the kitchen counter right here and fuck him. He just wants to fucking come.

“Do you think you can come just like this,” Jeremy breathes against Michael’s ear, “if I told you to?”

Unable to make any sound that isn’t an incomprehensible sex noise or even detach his hands from the kitchen counter to sign, Michael simply nods.

With a pleased hum that ripples across Michael’s bloodstream, Jeremy worries at the skin above Michael’s shirt collar with his teeth for a moment. Then, in a tone that leaves no room for refusal, with enough magic packed into the syllables that Michael’s head spins from it, Jeremy says, “Come for me.”

With a gasp, Michael doubles over, his elbows hitting the kitchen counter as he barely stays standing, coming in his jeans like a kid who just hit puberty and got keelhauled by a newfound libido.

When he gets his breath and higher brain functioning back, Michael realizes Jeremy’s no longer clinging to him, and he turns around to see the front of Jeremy’s jeans undone and Jeremy’s right hand coated in jizz.  **That was fast.**

“I was pretty much on the edge already,” Jeremy says, moving to the sink to wash his hands, his cheeks flushed pink with embarrassment. Which is rich, considering all the filthy things he was saying into Michael’s ear just a minute ago. “I can’t believe that actually worked.”

Michael rolls his eyes.  **Look, your voice is literally magic. You can give me boners even when I’m not horny just by saying my name in the right tone. It’s not that far a leap that you can give me orgasms with it, too.**

Jeremy turns the faucet off and wipes his hands on the hand towel hanging from a nearby hook. There’s a furrow to his brow as he parses what Michael just signed to him. “Yeah, I guess.” The furrow doesn’t go away, even as Michael turns and leads the way to his room. Once he has fresh underwear to change into, Michael peels his jeans and boxers off, because they’re disgusting, and chucks those into the hamper. When he turns around, Jeremy is sitting on the edge of Michael’s bed, looking slightly troubled.

Michael snaps his fingers twice to get Jeremy to look at him. **What’s the matter?**

Jeremy opens his mouth, closes it, then raises his hands.  **You said that my voice can make give you boners even where you’re not horny.**

Michael doesn’t see which part of that statement Jeremy is stuck on, so he gestures for Jeremy to continue.  **And?**

 **So does this mean I’m siren magicking you into getting boners so you can have sex with me?** Jeremy pauses, an appalled look coming over his face.  **Am I actually taking away your ability to consent when I use my voice for sex?**

He can feel a headache coming from the sheer stupidity of the idea. **Slow down. I don’t think that’s how it works.**

 **My voice can magically influence people. I make you want to have sex with me even when you’re not interested.** Jeremy’s signing grows increasingly agitated. **I am literally brainwashing you into having sex with me!**

“No!” Michael yells, signing it for good measure, because he doesn’t need Jeremy to go into another weird guilt spiral over his voice and convince himself that he can’t ever speak aloud again. **J** **eremiah Heere, listen to me. You are not brainwashing me, you dumbass. It’s normal to not be turned on until your partner initiates sex. I do it to you sometimes, too. You just happen to be a lot more effective with your voice.**

 **My voice can make you feel things,**  Jeremy signs, and now it’s the argument from when they first got together all over again.  **Which means I can be forcing you to feel like you want to have sex.**

**Your voice isn’t THAT powerful.**

Jeremy raises a disbelieving eyebrow at Michael’s crotch, then the laundry hamper, then back at Michael.

Michael feels his whole face heat up.  **Look, I get off on your voice because I LIKE it. Because I like YOU. You think your voice could get me to enjoy shit I don’t want to enjoy? You could sing at me all you want; I’d still find milk toast disgusting.**

 **Milk toast IS disgusting.**  There’s a trace of amusement in Jeremy’s expression now, a corner of his mouth reluctantly twitching. A signal that he’s surrendering to rational thinking.

 **See?**  Michael steps between Jeremy’s legs.  **You can’t control me. You just give me some extra feelings in the heat of the moment, and I like it when you make me feel like that. I’m letting you give me boners because I want to have sex with you all the time anyway, even without your voice.**

Jeremy blinks up at him, all blue eyes and long lashes and pink mouth, proving Michael’s point.  **You do?**

 **I dream about fucking you until you cry** , Michael signs, and watches Jeremy’s blush crawl all the way down his throat. **I was thinking about sucking you off during class yesterday and**   **Jenna said she was going to kill me. I want you to tie me up and fuck me and do every single thing you said earlier. Even if you never make a sound again, that doesn’t change.**

A slow smile is spreading across Jeremy’s face now, looking caught between pleased and disbelieving, and a warm rush of fondness fills Michael’s chest.

 **I love your voice because it makes me feel how good you feel.**  Michael mirrors the smile on Jeremy’s face.  **Because I love you.**

“Sap,” Jeremy croaks, small and wavering, but Michael can feel the gratitude in the word anyway. He closes his eyes when Michael cups his cheek, turning his face into the touch with a sigh that feels like warm water down Michael’s spine. “I love you too.”

There’s so much sheer affection in those words, interwoven with an ache that Michael knows intimately well. The sensation of never quite having enough, never being close enough. Wanting to erase all the boundaries between them so that there is no misunderstanding how deep these feelings run. Michael wishes he could make Jeremy understand that he feels it too. That he wants all of that, all of Jeremy, and it would still never be enough.

He has the rest of their lives to prove it.

Starting with this: leaning down to kiss Jeremy slow and sweet, his heart in his throat, with all the feelings that don’t need a voice to be expressed.


	5. no rest for the weary

Brooke was born straddling two worlds. Forever free to enjoy both, never shackled to either. It is the gift that all children of Sandman are bestowed.

-

The thing about being a child of Sandman is that there are no nightmares.

Not all dreamwalkers have the ability to manipulate dreamscapes, but Sandman is the maker of dreams and all his offspring inherit the ability to some extent. Brooke is no different. She can't build anything intricate or grand or alive, but she can coax dreams to take the shape of any environment she wants, and she can soothe nightmares away as easily as breathing. 

Most people think that it's amazing. Most people envy her. Most people think she must be living grandly in those dreams, stealing into other people's minds with ease. Daughter of Sandman, how exotic and extravagant her dreams must be in the slumbering world that bends to her whims.

They don't know the price Brooke pays for her birthright. Her curse. 

-

It's rare for Brooke to catch Chloe asleep. Usually Brooke is the one who sleeps while Chloe watches over her, but Brooke hasn't been sleeping much lately. 

"Are you planning on becoming an insomniac?" Chloe asks, groggy from waking up so early. She's been spending all of her nights at Brooke's since summer break started, only going back to her own home for a fresh change of clothes and to check in with her dad. "Because you'd look terrible with dark circles, no matter how cute you are."

"I like watching you sleep," Brooke says. It's the safest answer. "I get why you do it with me all the time."

"That's because you _sleep_ all the time." Even when she's barely awake, Chloe is sharp enough to catch Brooke's unspoken words. "And going from twelve hours of sleep a day to zero isn't going to help." She softens her words by running a hand through Brooke's hair, smoothing the tension away. "Why don't we aim for like, at least three hours per day, if it bothers you. I'll wake you up."

It's funny. Chloe used to be the one trying to coax Brooke to stay awake a little more. Forever worried that Brooke would choose the slumbering world over the waking one, that Brooke would one day never wake up. Always trying to tether Brooke to the land of wakefulness, to ensure that she always comes back. Chloe doesn't seem to fully realize that she's already accomplished that just by walking into the flower shop Brooke’s mom owns nine years ago. 

Brooke sighs and curls closer into Chloe under the covers. Her eyelids are so heavy, and it's still before sunrise. "Promise?"

Chloe kisses the top of her head. "Promise."

Brooke closes her eyes.

 

-

Dreamwalking is a tricky art of riding the tide and wayfinding in a starless world, a precarious balance of choosing your footsteps carefully while also ceding some control to the ebb and flow of dreamscapes all around her. Brooke’s ability to pick and choose whose dreams she enters is dependent on many factors, but the important part is this: she can come and go as she pleases, regardless of how welcomed she may be.

And the thing about being a child of Sandman is that not everybody welcomes you.

“Stop,” Chloe gasps, on her knees, her skin burning into a hideous black. Behind her, Jake lays face-down on the football field, legs mangled, unmoving. “Please.”

In front of Chloe, Rich raises his hand, his face utterly blank, horror frozen in his eyes as he moves against his will. He spreads his fingers, his open palm inches from Chloe’s face, and Brooke feels herself go cold all over.

Flames lick up Rich’s fingers and Brooke breaks herself out of her terror and throws herself forward, grabbing onto Rich’s wrist and shoving his arm down. “Rich!”

She focuses on the scenery around them and _pushes_ , shoving the charred football field and motionless Jake and wounded Chloe as far away as possible, until there’s nothing but an empty gray landscape, hazy and vague, leaving Brooke clinging shakily onto Rich in the middle of the clean slate of his dreamscape.

“I didn’t—” Rich’s blinks, gaining control of himself as awareness seeps in. “I’m dreaming.”

“It’s a dream,” Brooke confirms, and he winces, leaning away from her, trembling all over now that his body isn’t locked into a mockery of autonomous movement. She lets go of his wrist immediately. “Rich, that wasn’t what happened that day.”

Rich tubs his temples with one hand. “You weren’t there.”

No, she wasn’t, and every reminder of that is a cold knife inserted between her ribs, a sharp memory of how she’d been unmoored and alone in an endless current of dreams, unable to know what was happening to any of the people she cared about. 

She inhales through her teeth and pushes those thoughts away. “But I know that Jake and Chloe are okay. Jake’s walking on both legs again. Chloe’s fully recovered, too.” 

“I _know_ ,” Rich yells. He won’t look at her. “But it doesn’t change the fact that I was _there_ , and I almost _killed_ them. It doesn’t change the fucking fact that I have these dreams all the time. It doesn’t change the fact that I’m fucking _dangerous_.”

There’s not a single thing Brooke can say to deny that. Instead, she says, “You don’t have to do this alone.”

He laughs. It’s an ugly, broken sound. “Yeah, see, the thing is, it’s easier to be alone.”

“Rich.” Brooke tries to take a step closer, but he shakes his head and looks up, meeting her gaze for the first time. 

“Get out of my dream.” He looks so tired. So defeated. “And please don’t come back.”

She could stay, if she wanted. Rich doesn’t have the ability to force her to leave. There’s no way for him to prevent her from coming back, if she so chose to.

But Rich has suffered through too much of other’s imposing their will on his, and Brooke can’t bear to hurt him with her selfishness, even if she aches to chase his nightmares away and bring him kinder dreams.

So she leaves.

-

Dreams coalesce and dissolve as people fall asleep and wake up, and Brooke floats through the ever-shifting seascape of them, looking for familiar territory. Dreams have no geography, at least, not the kind that those who only dwell in the waking world can understand, but there’s always an undeniable ease to finding the dreams of those who are physically closer, the dreams of people she’s familiar with.

It’s a double-edged blade, to have access to the dreams of those she knows in the physical realm. To know a person from their inner world and their waking one, especially when dreams can keep no secrets. 

Especially when the access to inside a person’s head is so one-sided.

Which is why, in a way, Jenna has always been the easiest person to talk to. Even easier than Chloe.

“There’s less nightmares going around now.” Brooke sighs and rests her head on the bistro table she’s conjured to pair with the comfortable folding chairs she summoned. They’re sitting in an empty approximation of Times Square, the only version of it that Jenna could peacefully exist in. “But some people aren’t getting any better.”

Jenna leans over the table to run her fingers through Brooke’s hair, which feels nice. “Tell me about it. Even without school I can still hear some real fucking distress out there.”

There’s been so many nightmares that Brooke has stumbled upon over the years. So many dreams formed from twisted memories, truth obfuscated by smoke and mirrors, only the pain and terror shining through clear and bright. Her third grade teacher, drowning in saltwater as the waves swallow him under at the beach. A customer who once stopped by her mother’s shop, forever reliving the car crash he lost his arm and brother to. A classmate from middle school, begging for a reprieve as her father whips her over and over with his belt. All these people Brooke knows, who refused to acknowledge the nightmares and Brooke in the waking world, more and more people giving her a wide berth once she’s seen too much of their fears.

That’s the thing about being a child of Sandman: you learn things that you are better off not knowing.

“I feel like we’re losing him,” Brooke says. She doesn’t need to say a name. 

“He’s…got a lot of stuff going on.” Just like Brooke’s seen so many things she shouldn’t have, Jenna’s heard so many things she never wanted to hear. “I can’t even blame him. I’d be pretty fucked up too, if I’d been brainwashed into hurting people I cared about.”

Brooke closes her eyes to prevent any tears. “ _We_ care about him, too.”

“Honestly?” Jenna places a hand over Brooke’s on the table and squeezes it. “I think that makes him feel worse.”

It’s unfair, how loving people isn’t enough to heal them. To make things better. How sometimes love just makes things harder. It shouldn’t be so hard, Brooke thinks as she turns her hand over to hold Jenna’s. Loving people shouldn’t hurt this much.

-

“God, kill me now,” Michael moans into his hands, the tips of his ears bright red. He’s curled up into a ball of embarrassment, floating in zero gravity as his dreamscape mimics outer space.

“At least both of you had your clothes on,” Brooke observes with a wry laugh. She’s definitely walked into much more graphic dreams before. And very few making out dreams involve outer space. “Is the space thing a fantasy you’ve had for a while, or is it just a random thing?”

“Brooke!” Michael squawks, his body rotating a full 360 degrees in a scandalized flail. “Don’t ask me that! And no, it’s random! This isn’t a kink I have, I swear!”

“It’s kinda cool.” Brooke floats her way over to Michael. “Want to keep it, or do you want me to install gravity again?”

Michael takes a long moment to consider. “I kinda wanna keep it.”

“Sure.” Brooke settles into a floating position beside Michael, their shoulders knocking against each other. “So I guess you and Jeremy are having a good time, then?”

“Oh my god.” Michael covers his face with both hands again. “I, well, yes. Very much.”

Brooke snickers. “Aw, it’s good that you guys are happy.”

She means it, too. There’s been so many nightmares and bleak dreams in the past couple months, so many instances of Brooke panicking and jolting back to the waking world, terrified that something awful happened while she was wading her way through dreamscapes. This is a nice change of pace.

“What about you?” Michael lowers his hands, giving her a sharp look that sees right through her. “Been a while since I’ve seen you here. You getting some more sleep now?”

She winces. “Kinda. Sorry I haven’t been visiting much lately.”

Michael waves off her apology. “You don’t owe me anything. Don’t worry about it. I’m just worried because you look tired lately.”

“I’ve been trying to spend time with people.” It’s not a full truth, but it’s a truth nonetheless. She thinks of Chloe, back in the waking world, curled protectively around Brooke’s slumbering body. She thinks of Jenna, who sits in empty cityscapes with Brooke and holds her hand. She can love them in both worlds, but there is only world where she can be with them both simultaneously. “But yeah, I’m getting more sleep. Don’t worry.”

“That’s good,” Michael says. “You really deserve some rest.”

Brooke laughs. “You’re too sweet.” 

Michael is one of the few people Brooke isn’t ever scared to visit. He doesn’t flinch from her even after she sees his nightmares, and always delights in the temporary recovery of his hearing, like it’s a surprising gift every time. He loves listening to Brooke as much as she likes to listen to him. It’s relaxing and fun and the closest to resting that she can indulge in.

For her, there is no such thing as dreamless slumber. Neither of her worlds could ever offer her a refuge from consciousness.

Because that’s the thing about being a child of Sandman.

There is no true rest.

-

Brooke was born straddling two worlds. Forever living in both, never truly belonging to either. It is the cross that all children of Sandman bear.

But if Brooke had to choose, she knows which world she'd give up.


	6. what is beyond us

Bobby comes back from Georgia for the summer and says, “You can’t stay here, man.”

Rich knows that. Their dad won’t lay a finger on him—not ever again, not since Rich’s powers manifested—but all the same, this isn’t a home meant for anybody to stay. “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

“We’ll figure something out.” Bobby runs a hand over his face, looking tired. “I’m not leaving you here this time.”

Bobby only left for college because he thought Rich would be safe, with fire in his blood and a lesson burned into their dad’s skin. It isn’t his fault that Rich will never feel safe again, no matter where he goes.

It isn’t his fault that Rich can’t stand to be near him. That it scares him shitless that he’ll end up hurting his big brother, too.

-

There’s a lot of people Rich can’t stand to be near, these days. 

Michael and Christine are the easiest to still talk to, but even then there’s a jittery unease in his bones, the stark awareness of how _human_ they are. How easily he could burn them, if he ever lost control. Since summer break started, he’s barely seen their faces—though Michael lives close by enough for them to walk into each other once in a while—and they’ve mostly been texting, and that’s a lot less nerve-wracking. Harder to reduce somebody to ashes over the phone, after all. 

He hasn’t talked to Brooke in a while. He feels too exposed under her kind, understanding gaze, and the pathetic gratitude that she never brings up his nightmares in real life feels like an irritable itch under his skin. 

And speaking of people who know too much about him, there’s Jenna. He’s never minded Jenna’s ability to snoop in his head, but there’ve been new, recent developments that Rich doesn’t want her to hear. If she gave him a sympathetic look, Rich might have to set the whole neighborhood on fire.

Except he doesn’t want to set anything on fire. He doesn’t want anything to do with his flames ever again. Even though it’s been over three months since the incident, he still feels nauseous every time he sees the burn scars on Chloe’s arm and torso. Even though he has his own scarring from her own attack, he can’t help but think of how his scars are widespread, scattered across his skin, a shock meant to deter. The marks on Chloe are focused, a trail that pierces through the defensively positioned arm, up the torso, aiming for the heart. Aiming to kill.

(He doesn’t think about Jeremy at all. He can’t. He had heard the sound of Jeremy’s inadvertent laughter on the last day of classes, and his blood had turned to ice and he’d had to go throw up his lunch. It's not Jeremy's fault, just like how it wasn't Rich's fault, but the damage has been done.)

-

And then there’s Jake.

-

They’d met at the beginning of freshman year, when Rich was still trying so hard to pretend he was an inch the intimidating, fire-wielding, abusive-father-burning badass people thought he was. And then Jake had made a joke about Rich looking more like a dwarf hybrid than a salamander hybrid, and Rich had shot back something about mommy issues, and then three days later they were best friends.

It was so _easy_. Jake saw through Rich’s incessant need to never look weak, to never seem like easy prey, and Rich had recognized Jake’s touch-starved clinginess for what it was and had adjusted accordingly. They could turn all the things that scared them or hurt them or worried them into jokes they could laugh about together. Jake called Bobby “Big Bro” and Rich talked to Sylphie more than he talked to his own mom. Even when Chloe and Brooke had the occasional arguments and Jeremy and Michael had their weird, fucked up communication issues, Jake and Rich had never had a problem. They’d never been apart for more than a couple days at most.

And now Rich doesn’t touch Jake anymore. Barely even looks him in the eye. Sometimes, Rich wishes it’d never been easy for them in the first place. He wishes their friendship had been harder, that they weren’t as close. 

Maybe it would’ve hurt less.

-

“I think this sounds like a good idea,” Rich says, tapping a finger on his Bobby’s laptop screen. “We don’t even have to sell our organs on the black market to afford it.”

Bobby makes a disgruntled noise. It’s his least favorite option. “Dude, I’m pretty sure in some countries _that_ constitutes as fucking _jail_.”

Which is exactly why Rich thinks it’s perfect. “Call them.” 

-

There’s a gust of wind in his bedroom and Rich hates that sometimes he just can’t keep a secret from an Ancient. He hates how fucking much he missed this invasion of privacy.

“Sylphie.”

“I did not intend to eavesdrop,” Sylphie’s voice says gently. “But what you plan—it is unkind. To those who care about you and to you.”

Rich thinks it’s the kindest thing for all of them, but he’s too tired to explain it to Sylphie. It’s not her fault she doesn’t know what it’s like, to be fallible and human and scared. “Please don’t tell Jake.”

There’s a short silence where Rich wonders if she’s doing that right now, but he silences that thought. Sylphie’s always kept secrets, like how Brooke and Jenna do. 

“Only under the condition,” Sylphie finally says, “that you promise to tell him yourself. In person.”

Rich winces at the very idea. “Um, I’m going to need some time for that.”

“As long as you tell him.”

There’s a lot of things Rich should probably tell Jake. Things he should tell all of his friends. He doesn’t want to say any of them, but he probably owes them the truth. He owes it to Jake to say it to his face.

Rich sighs. “Yeah, sure.”

A breeze curls around him, ruffling his hair, brushing against his cheek. It’s the kindest touch Rich has received in months. “I am so very sorry, little one.”

He closes his eyes. “I am, too.”

-

Their mom looks at the paperwork and informational leaflets they’ve gathered for her and folds her hands together. “Are you really sure?”

“I am,” Rich says, and beside him, Bobby crosses his arms and looks away.

She sighs, but she doesn’t attempt to persuade him otherwise. She just returned from a humanitarian mission in Argentina and she’ll be on her way to some other far off land in another three weeks. She won’t be around long enough to protect Rich, whether it be from himself or their dad.

“We could find better options, if you want.” Her eyes are a shimmery gold that almost gleam red under the right light. A souvenir of her salamander ancestry: the curse she passed down to only her younger son. “I could stay.”

Rich used to hate her for leaving. For not loving him and Bobby enough to stay. He knows now, that she loves them—but he also knows that love is why she always leaves. He never understood that, but now he does. 

“I’ll be eighteen in five months anyway. I can make my choices.” He looks her in the eye and wills her to understand. “I want this.”

Their mom looks at him for a long moment, then reaches for a pen. Signs the paperwork.

-

“I never wanted you to be like me,” she says later, when it’s just the two of them.

Rich flips through the thin family photo album and looks at the pictures of his mom’s younger self, arms nervously crossed as she leans over Rich’s infant self in his crib. Like she’s scared of touching him. “I don’t blame you for any of it, you know. Not anymore.”

He knows now, that sometimes you have to leave people before you learn to hate each other. It’s the only way to keep loving them. The only way to stop ripping each other apart.

-

Three days before the end of summer break, he calls Jake out to grab dinner at their favorite local diner. They stuff themselves full and split a pie and guzzle milkshakes til they’re bursting, and then they take a long walk to one of their usual hangout spots behind the old K-Mart, where there’s a low, grassy hill that’s a prime spot for stargazing and conversation.

“Okay, now that’s most definitely the poop emoji,” Rich says, pointing up at a collection of stars that could totally be arranged to outline the exact emoji he’s describing. “Look, if you follow that swirl—”

“I’m pretty sure that one’s supposed to be part of Ursa Major,” Jake says through wheezing laughter, because he’s a nerd who memorized a bunch of constellations.

Rich leans sideways to knock his shoulder against Jake’s, trying not to let his insides turn to mush at hearing Jake laugh from up close after so long. “That’s the big bear, right? Bears poop, Jakey.”

“Oh my god.” Jake leans into Rich’s touch, his shoulder shaking from how hard he’s laughing. “Rich, dude, do you know _any_ of the constellations?”

“Fuck yeah I do.” Rich takes a moment to squeeze his memory for a drop or two. “Uh. Is that Zeus?”

“That’s Gemini. Zeus isn’t even a constellation.”

“Fuck you, it could totally be a lightning bolt. Wait, maybe it should be Harry Potter, then.” Jake laughs even harder while Rich squints up at the sky. “Shut up, shut up, shut up. I’m gonna find one. I know one, I know—AHA, the big dog!”

Jake manages to choke down the laughter enough to get a good look at where Rich is pointing. “Oh, yeah, Canis Major. You got it, bud.”

“An absolute fuckin’ unit, isn’t he,” Rich says, and Jake erupts into a fresh peal of laughter.

“The most absolute unit,” Jake agrees. “You know that the big bright star there is actually named Sirius, right?”

Rich raises an eyebrow with a grin. “Wait, _seriously_?” 

He cackles when Jake shoves him. “Holy shit, man, that was terrible. And yeah, _seriously_.”

Rich clasps a hand to his chest in mock-awe. “Can’t believe a star is named after the greatest Harry Potter character in history.”

“I think it’s the other way around,” Jake points out.

“Shhhhhh, let us commemorate the only true gay rep who left us way too soon in that series.” Rich looks up at the sea of stars twinkling in the night sky and the brightest star amongst them, shining so bright that Rich might be able to see it wherever he goes. His throat feels dry. “Hey, Jake?”

“Yeah?” 

Jake is sitting almost flush against Rich’s side now, and Rich carves that warmth into his chest, tries to memorize the moonlight glinting off Jake’s grinning eyes. There’s been a pleased, happy flush to Jake today. A wordless delight that Rich is spending time with him again. Rich isn’t stupid enough to miss that silent flicker of hope in Jake’s smile, that maybe they can go back to being regular best friends again.

And fuck, Rich hates to crush that hope, to crush everything between them like this, his own heart included, but he has to do it. 

“I’m leaving,” he blurts. 

Jake blinks. “I mean, sure? You want me to walk you home?”

“No, I mean.” Rich throws his hands up in a _fuck it_ gesture. “I’m leaving town. Permanently.”

Jake freezes. “What?”

“Like, there’s this facility, okay, for juvenile hybrids like me. I mean, they can also have adults, but mostly it’s teens and shit. And they take care of me and give me an education and shit, but also help me manage my powers and make sure I stay out of trouble.”

“Like _juvie_?” Jake asks, horrified.

Rich winces, because that’s exactly what Bobby called it. “More like a boarding school! A super strict, totally secure boarding school with no semester breaks.”

“Dude, what the fuck?” Jake leans away a little, like he’s having trouble processing. “Wait, when are you leaving?”

“Um.” Rich exhales through his teeth. “Tomorrow?”

Jake stares at him. “You’re kidding, right?”

Rich shakes his head.

“I can’t fucking believe,” Jake starts, then stands up, stalks several steps away, then whirls around. “You ASSHOLE.”

He probably deserves that. “Jake, bro, I’m _so_ sorry I didn’t tell you sooner—”

“Oh yeah? IS THAT WHY YOU’RE TELLING ME THIS LITERALLY THE DAY BEFORE YOU SKIP TOWN, RICHARD GORANSKI?”

“—but this isn’t easy for me, either!” Rich says, raising his voice to match Jake’s volume. “It’s fucking hard for me, too.”

“If it’s hard, then don’t leave.” Jake looks so confused. So hurt. “You could just stay.”

Rich stands up and takes a step towards him. Then another. “It’s harder to stay.” He keeps going until he comes to a stop in front of Jake. “I can’t explain it, but it’s so much harder. And I think if I stay, things are only gonna get worse.”

He doesn’t say, _I’m scared of who I’ll become if I stay here_. Doesn’t say, _I’m terrified that if I stay I’ll end up hating you and everybody else._

Jake looks at him and—deflates. All the anger extinguished, his shoulders slumping. “I get it. I don’t like it, but I get it.”

It’s so easy between them. Jake understands Rich needs to leave before everything burns down. Rich understands that Jake hates the idea of abandonment. 

It's just that everything else is so fucking hard.

“I’m sorry,” Rich says, and steps forward to give Jake a hug.

They hug for a long time, Jake’s arms so tight around Rich that, for a second, he’s not entirely sure Jake will let go afterwards. As if Jake would pick him up like this and kidnap him to his home and never let him leave. It’s a ridiculous idea. It’s a tempting idea.

He’s not sure whether he’s relieved or disappointed when Jake releases him.

-

After a long interrogation session where they lay side by side, watching the stars, talking about the future of their friendship, what this new normal will look like for them, Jake asks, “Is there anything else you should tell me?”

"Nah." Rich has answered every single one of Jake’s questions with as much honesty as he can, but this is the answer that is a lie. "I think I’ve said everything.”

-

“I’ll miss you,” Jake says at Rich’s doorstep, and Rich thinks, with a crippling clarity that threatens to cut him off at the knees, that this might be the last time he ever sees Jake Dillinger.

It might be his last chance to ever say _hey, so this is going to sound crazy, but after I was brainwashed, while I was obsessing over your recovery and reflecting back over our entire friendship, I kinda figured out I’m a little bit in love with you. Maybe a lot in love with you. And I hate that I only realized this after I almost killed you, and it’d kill me to lose you as my best friend, but I want to kiss you like crazy and move in with you and make Sylphie my Ancient-in-law and be friends with everybody else again and not be so fucking terrified all the goddamn time._

He doesn’t. He knows that sometimes leaving is the only way to stop everything you love from turning to cinder and ashes.

Instead, he says, “I’ll miss you too.”

-

He teaches himself to map out the constellations in the night sky, one by one. Orion, Corvus, Aquila. There's a comfort in how the stars are the same, even when everything else in Rich's life is different. He imagines that if he keeps this up, he might be able to navigate his way through the dark wherever he goes, no matter how far he strays from the people he cares about. 

Even from the opposite end of the country, Sirius is still the brightest star in the sky. Just like how Jake is still the brightest point in Rich’s universe, even with over two-thousand miles between them. 

Maybe one day, Rich thinks, he might be able to follow that light to somewhere he could call home. 

**Author's Note:**

> writing tumblr: [divineprojectzero](http://divineprojectzero.tumblr.com)  
> main tumblr: [listentotheshityousay](http://listentotheshityousay.tumblr.com)  
> twitter: [@listento_yousay](http://twitter.com/listento_yousay)


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